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Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

Bring Her Back was the first film to go on my list this year. The Philippou brothers’ Talk to Me was my pick of the year in 2023 and I had high hopes for whatever they worked on next. One of the things that impressed me most about Talk to Me was how much it took what could have been a teen horror flick and steadily ramped up the darkness until it became something unexpectedly nightmarish.

Given the reputation Bring Her Back has acquired for traumatising viewers, it was never going to surprise me in the same way. Even so, I’ve been looking forward to it enough that I saved it for the end of the month. Sometimes I just need a little treat to look forward to when slogging my way through weaker films.

Bring Her Back is available to rent in the UK.

Bring Her Back 1

Synopsis

When their father dies suddenly, Piper and her stepbrother Andy are placed into foster care. Piper is partially sighted, and Andy, who is a few years older, is very protective of her. He plans to become Piper’s legal guardian once he turns eighteen.

They are placed in the care of Laura, a former social worker. She is grieving the death of her daughter, Cathy, who drowned in their swimming pool. Andy is creeped out by Oliver, the other boy Laura is fostering, who is non-verbal and very intense. This leads to conflict between Laura and Andy, which Laura uses to drive a wedge between Piper and her brother.

As Laura’s manipulations grow more sinister, Oliver’s behaviour becomes stranger and more alarming. All of this is building towards something terrible, something related to the creepy cult videos that Laura keeps watching.

But why is Laura trying to drive Andy away? What plans does she have for Piper? And just what is Oliver doing with that knife?

Bring Her Back 2

General Thoughts

Bring Me Back is another film where people may want to check content warnings. It crosses a lot of lines.

Laura is one of the scariest monsters I’ve seen in a horror film. She is a perfectly ordinary woman living in the suburbs, dealing with crushing grief and guilt, and she will do anything to put things right. What makes her so frightening is her skills as a social worker, allowing her to identify and use everyone’s psychological pressure points. She plies the kids with alcohol, plays on Andy’s trauma over his father, and uses Piper’s poor eyesight to misdirect her. Perhaps the worst thing, however, is that her motivation is weirdly sympathetic even as she does the most terrible things to vulnerable people in her care.

The way Laura relates to death is also chilling. In a film with some shockingly violent scenes, one of the most uncomfortable moments comes when she takes Andy and Piper to their father’s funeral. Andy is clearly uncomfortable with seeing his father’s body lying in its casket, but Laura coerces him into kissing his father goodbye. This only becomes more awful once learn just why Andy found the funeral so difficult, and how Laura was playing on his trauma. There are layers upon layers to this horror.

The way Bring Her Back handles exposition is masterful. There are some key points the audience needs to understand about Laura’s scheme, and it would not only be clumsy but also completely bizarre for her to voice them. Instead, we see her watching old videotapes of a cult performing a ritual, subtitled in English, which lay out what she needs to do without being blatant. I only wish more films were as clever.

Bring Her Back 3

Verdict

Bring Her Back is everything I hoped it might be. I love horror films that set out to hurt the audience, and this one does not hold back. While I’m not sure I could call it the darkest film in a month that includes The Devil’s Bath, it is a close second. This is a brutal, harrowing story, and it is as visceral as it is upsetting. There are a couple of scenes involving teeth, in particular, that had me recoiling from the screen.

Subject matter aside, it is a fantastic piece of storytelling, intelligent but unambiguous, and shot through with dread. In an age where so many big horror films play things safe, it is refreshing to see something so unapologetically nasty. This isn’t a film that goes for subtle scares.

The makeup effects are phenomenal. Oliver is a creepy character, and the child actor portraying him is perfect, but his physical transformation over the course of the film turns him into something truly nightmarish. I am certain he will become an icon of horror cinema.

So, unsurprisingly, Bring Her Back is my pick of the month and the perfect way to wrap up my 2025 challenge. If you want a horror film that will actually horrify you this Halloween, you couldn’t ask for better.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Heretic (USA, 2024)
  2. The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
  3. The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
  4. The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
  5. WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
  6. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
  7. The Monkey (USA, 2025)
  8. Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
  9. Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
  10. Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
  11. Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
  12. Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
  13. Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
  14. Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
  15. The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
  16. A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
  17. Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
  18. Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
  19. Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
  20. Hatching (Finland, 2022)
  21. Abigail (USA, 2024)
  22. Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
  23. The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
  24. Pieces (Spain, 1982)
  25. Infested (France, 2023)
  26. Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
  27. A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
  28. Enys Men (UK, 2022)
  29. Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
  30. Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
  31. Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

And if you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

The October Horror Movie Challenge

As the month comes to a close, it’s time to pick through the bones of another October Horror Movie Challenge. Fundamentally, this is simply an excuse to watch a bunch of horror films. Personally, I watch films I’ve never seen before and post a review every day, but it’s great to chat to people who just watch what they can.

I also took part in 2013, 2014, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. You can find my reviews from these years on this site.

As much fun as watching all these films has been, talking about them is even better. If you fancy joining the conversation, I would love to hear from you. The main hub of discussion is our Discord server, where we have a channel dedicated to the October Horror Movie Challenge. Alternatively, you can contact me on Bluesky, Reddit, or by dropping a note down the old disused mine shaft.

The Good

I’m always conflicted about how to select films for the OHMC. On one hand, I want to experience a wide range of what the genre offers, mixing up age and country of origin, and also quality. It can be great fun to write a grumpy review of some stinker, or, better yet, be pleasantly surprised by a film that looks awful. On the other hand, I want to know that I’m going to enjoy most of what I watch, just so the month doesn’t feel like a complete slog.

So, once again, I’ve ended up picking a lot of films I’ve enjoyed. The downside is it’s hard to pick just three highlights.

There are many near misses to mention here. The Sadness is a savage and clever take on the rage virus subgenre and did much to convince me I’m ready to love zombie films again. Oz Perkins’ The Monkey was a wonderful combination of dark comedy and ludicrous gore that had me laughing and gasping throughout. The grotesqueries of The Ugly Stepsister turned my stomach in all the right ways. Heart Eyes blended the slasher flick and romcom genres in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible. And Infested is the kind of manic entertainment you want from a monster movie.

Hatching

It’s easy for a horror film with deeper themes to forget about actually being horrific. Hatching avoids any such missteps, deftly blending its depiction of a girl’s attempts to appease her overbearing mother with her relationship with the hideous bird monster she’s raising. This is a creepy, grotesque film that packs a huge emotional punch.

Best Wishes to All 4

Best Wishes to All

With less imagination, Best Wishes to All could just have been a preachy morality tale about how people exploit each other. What we get, happily, is something much weirder that both builds unease and delivers some real shocks when it wants to. Somehow, it manages to make a tender act of intimacy between an elderly couple more upsetting than eye mutilation, coprophagy, and a young child vomiting blood.

Bring Her Back

This is probably the least surprising entry on my list. I picked the Philippou brothers’ last feature, Talk to Me, as one of my films of the month in 2023, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing what they did next. Bring Her Back does not disappoint, presenting a pitch-dark story of just how far a grieving mother will go. While the violence and gore are absolutely stomach-turning, it’s the emotional impact that will really hurt you.

The Bad

While I don’t really subscribe to the idea of “so bad it’s good”, I do hope for a few really terrible films every year for variety, and for the chance to write a bad-tempered review or two.

There were a few disappointments this year that I’d struggle to call bad. Grafted, for example, has plenty of redeeming features, but ultimately felt too safe and derivative. I had similar misgivings about Perewangan, which didn’t offer anything I hadn’t seen in many other, better films. And the only sin Creature From the Black Lagoon really committed was not living up to the best of the Universal monster movies.

Nightmare City

Nightmare City is a mess. This is a very 1950s tale of atomic mutants on the rampage, given the kind of sex and gore makeover that could only have come out of 1980s Italy. Unfortunately, most of the makeup effects look like they came from the bargain bin of the local fancy dress shop. The main problem, however, is that far too little of interest happens, and then the film squanders any remaining goodwill with the kind of ending that makes you want to punch someone.

Winterbeast

I was torn whether to include Winterbeast in the Bad or Weird category. It is certainly the worst film I’ve seen this month, and possibly for years, but it is also indescribably odd. This is clearly a labour of love, and it goes to some very strange places, but the sheer incompetence of the filmmaking renders it completely incoherent. It is the rare kind of bad film I’d actually recommend, if only because watching it is a psychedelic experience.

A Cat in the Brain

I am an unashamed fan of Lucio Fulci, but I won’t pretend for a moment that most of his films are any good. Even the best of them succeed despite themselves, bludgeoning us with weirdness until we stop caring if they make sense. A Cat in the Brain could have done this, but it just descends into a series of gory scenes I suspect Fulci couldn’t build a film around. Far from his best work, and all the more frustrating because a bit more imagination could have made it something special.

The Weird

Weird horror films are usually my favourites. All-out weirdness can be a lot more unsettling than gore or suspense in the right hands, and even the wrong ones can create something memorable. I seek out at least a few oddballs every year to keep things lively.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is certainly strange enough to earn a place in this list, but I was put off by the sexualisation of its teenage star. While I’m not sure how horrific it is, I was very taken with how Enys Men told its story through a fractured visual narrative. Dead Talents Society was stranger in tone than content, but a good blend of comedy and poignancy. And while A Page of Madness was probably the strangest viewing experience of the month, that was more down to my not having enough context when I watched it.

Sister Midnight

The only reason I placed Sister Midnight here instead of my top picks is that it is such a difficult film to pin down. It took around half the runtime for me to understand why it had been marketed as a horror film and not a black comedy. Even then, it is the kind of film that uses horror tropes to amuse and confound rather than to scare. Mostly, however, I included it here because of the goats.

Arrebato

Arrebato is another film that defies simple description. Despite it fitting vaguely into the cursed media subgenre, it doesn’t use many identifiable horror tropes. This is more a story about addiction, both to filmmaking and to heroin. Even so, its tale of obsession and transcendence is genuinely unsettling, and I found myself so tense in the closing scenes that my shoulders hurt.

Pieces

At its heart, Pieces is a sleazy, exploitative slasher. It follows the general formula of a seventies giallo, adding buckets of gore. What makes it weird is all the odd little asides that pad out its slight plot, from the random attack by a professor of kung fu to the close-up of one of the victims peeing herself. I don’t think anyone would call Pieces a comedy, but it is the kind of absurd nonsense that will have you laughing uncomfortably.

2025’s Selections

If you’d like a recap of the full list, it went something like this:

  1. Heretic (USA, 2024)
  2. The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
  3. The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
  4. The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
  5. WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
  6. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
  7. The Monkey (USA, 2025)
  8. Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
  9. Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
  10. Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
  11. Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
  12. Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
  13. Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
  14. Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
  15. The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
  16. A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
  17. Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
  18. Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
  19. Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
  20. Hatching (Finland, 2022)
  21. Abigail (USA, 2024)
  22. Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
  23. The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
  24. Pieces (Spain, 1982)
  25. Infested (France, 2023)
  26. Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
  27. A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
  28. Enys Men (UK, 2022)
  29. Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
  30. Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
  31. Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

If you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)

Having seen some great Indonesian films over the past few years, I was keen to explore more this month. The success of Joko Anwar has led to more Indonesian horror reaching international audiences, and I assume this must be a boom time for their industry. There were a number of new films on various streaming platforms, and I picked Perewangan solely because it had the highest IMDB rating.

I was a bit less enthusiastic when I read that Perewangan is based on a Twitter thread. It’s jarring to see a social media handle as a screenwriting credit. The original poster claimed to recount a true story rooted in Javanese beliefs, which seems like pretty standard horror marketing to me. Then again, You Might Be the Killer was based on a Twitter thread and I enjoyed the hell out of that.

Perewangan is streaming on Shudder in the UK.

Perewangan 1

Synopsis

Maya’s family has it rough. Her father has spent years in a psychiatric hospital and her mother is possessed by the kind of demon that thinks the Exorcist crab walk is still trendy. A lot of this dates back to her grandfather being a black magician whose power was rooted in pureeing birds. Oh, and there’s an unbreakable cursed mirror in her mother’s bedroom that’s somehow connected to all this.

Things only get worse after Maya’s father kills himself. Her mother comes out of a long vegetative state, but she’s still not quite herself. That would probably be the demon. Her family get involved, more to see if they can sell her house and split the profits, but then they start dropping dead. Demon again.

So, of course, Maya is going to have to deal this demon. And maybe do something about that cursed mirror. Those things are more trouble than they’re worth.

Perewangan 2

General Thoughts

As I mentioned in my review of Grafted, I feel guilty about giving poor reviews to films that aren’t actually that bad. Perewangan is definitely one of those cases. The truth is that it’s a perfectly average horror film. It’s well-made, with some nasty special effects and a few striking scenes.

The problem is that I’ve been watching horror films for over fifty years now. After thousands of films, it takes a lot for one to stand out. That’s why I’ll usually take a rough-but-imaginative independent production over something polished but more conventional. Even the worst trash might show me something original, and that’s what will stick in my brain. This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate skilled filmmaking — quite the opposite — but there is usually less desire to take risks when budgets are higher. It’s safer to give the audience what they expect.

This is why I don’t especially like the more successful horror franchises of recent decades, such as The Conjuring, Insidious, or Paranormal Activity. It’s not that I’m a hipster or a contrarian — although I may struggle to defend myself against those accusations — only that these films rarely offer anything I haven’t seen before. My reaction will be a very different one than that of someone who only watches a couple of horror films a year.

Ultimately, a lot of viewers will probably have fun with Perewangan. It’s great that there are films that cater to a more casual audience and not just jaded fans. I just wish I could still enjoy them.

Perewangan 3

Verdict

Every big moment in Perewangan is terribly predictable, and nothing about the execution is imaginative enough to mitigate this. The pacing is acceptable, and there are some gruesome moments, but I still found myself counting down the minutes until it would end.

The tone doesn’t help. Perewangan is completely humourless and largely lacking any kind of emotional hook. It feels like it’s working through a checklist of set pieces rather than creating a gripping narrative. Some of these set pieces are terrific, but we can see them coming, and then breeze past them as soon as they’re over. There is no real build-up or release of tension, only an awful flatness. All this makes it hard to care about the characters or what happens to them.

Perewangan might be fun to watch with friends who are relatively new to the genre and aren’t looking for anything too original. More jaded horror fans may find themselves growing as impatient as I did. If you want to watch a film about a cursed mirror this Halloween, you might be better off with Oculus.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Heretic (USA, 2024)
  2. The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
  3. The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
  4. The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
  5. WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
  6. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
  7. The Monkey (USA, 2025)
  8. Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
  9. Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
  10. Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
  11. Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
  12. Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
  13. Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
  14. Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
  15. The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
  16. A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
  17. Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
  18. Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
  19. Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
  20. Hatching (Finland, 2022)
  21. Abigail (USA, 2024)
  22. Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
  23. The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
  24. Pieces (Spain, 1982)
  25. Infested (France, 2023)
  26. Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
  27. A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
  28. Enys Men (UK, 2022)
  29. Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
  30. Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
  31. Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

And if you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)

I don’t know if this pick is a cheat or not. While I must have seen Creature From the Black Lagoon on television as a kid, I have no actual memory of doing so. It seems like such a weird gap in my horror viewing. Either way, I’m going to take my lack of memory as licence to review it this month.

Having seen so many of the classic Universal monster movies and their contemporaries when I was a child means that I’m often unsure of what I’ve actually watched or just read about. There are doubtless other classics I could be reviewing if not for some misguided notion that I’ve seen them. Maybe I’ll throw caution to the wind and include more next year.

Creature From the Black Lagoon is available on DVD.

Creature From the Black Lagoon 1

Synopsis

A palaeontologist investigating a partial fossil of a mysterious humanoid amphibian teams up with a couple of ichthyologists researching lungfish for an expedition down the Amazon. They believe that some aquatic offshoot of the human race once lived around here, and hope to find fossil evidence. The origin of the fossils they’ve already found seems to be the Black Lagoon, a place of great natural beauty but with an evil reputation.

Of course, the creature they’re looking for turns out to be anything other than extinct, and the expedition members come to violent disagreement over whether to capture or kill it. This argument becomes all the more intense when the creature dams their boat into the lagoon and starts picking off expedition members.

Who will prevail in this battle between man and fishman? Honestly, given the actions of the expedition, it’s hard not to root for the creature.

Creature From the Black Lagoon 2

General Thoughts

The film begins with a bombastic voiceover about evolution. Weirdly, however, it also mixes in quotations from the Book of Genesis. I wonder if this was to help sell the film to religious viewers.

Much of the action takes place underwater, and the producers clearly wanted to get the best value out of their waterproof cameras. The problem is that the water is murky, and some fight scenes are obfuscated by great clouds of silt thrown up in all the tussling. On the plus side, it does mean that some of the initial shots of the Creature are blurry, as those of cryptids should be.

The Creature’s rubber suit looks pretty good, especially in the water, and I can only imagine what a challenge swimming in it was. It doesn’t look quite as convincing on land, however, and some of the close-ups of the Creature’s face and glassy eyes are ill-advised.

One weird detail is how the characters take time to talk about the importance of decompression when scuba diving, demonstrating the process of rising to the surface in stages. This felt like set up for some big climactic scene, but it is never mentioned again. Maybe the filmmakers were just worried about the short run time and needed some padding.

You can tell The Creature From the Black Lagoon was shot in 3D from the occasional scene that thrusts objects out towards the viewer. It’s not as egregious as in some other 3D films, but it does lead to some weird moments, especially with the harpoon gun.

Creature From the Black Lagoon 3

Verdict

While it follows the general formula of earlier Universal monster movies, Creature From the Black Lagoon is weaker than the best of its predecessors. I have to admire Universal for creating something original after drawing on gothic horror for so long, but the story they’ve constructed around their monster isn’t terribly exciting. The main problem is that it simply feels padded, even at 80 minutes.

The foundation is fine, with the expedition into uncharted areas of the Amazon and the simmering rivalries between academics, although the film doesn’t really come alive until the Creature takes the spotlight. Even after that, however, the film goes around in circles, with the Creature and the expedition trading tit-for-tat attacks with little variation. We know how things are going to play out, but it takes far too long to get there.

The Creature itself is a terrific monster. It may be derivative of the Deep Ones from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, but the presentation is significantly different. In the tradition of the best Universal monsters, it is a tragic figure, fighting for its life against human interlopers.

Overall, The Creature From the Black Lagoon is a mild disappointment. A tighter script and a bit less gratuitous underwater photography might have made it a true classic. As things stand, it’s an average horror romp that relies completely on a standout monster. An interesting piece of cinematic history, but not the most exciting monster movie you could watch this month.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Heretic (USA, 2024)
  2. The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
  3. The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
  4. The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
  5. WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
  6. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
  7. The Monkey (USA, 2025)
  8. Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
  9. Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
  10. Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
  11. Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
  12. Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
  13. Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
  14. Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
  15. The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
  16. A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
  17. Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
  18. Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
  19. Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
  20. Hatching (Finland, 2022)
  21. Abigail (USA, 2024)
  22. Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
  23. The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
  24. Pieces (Spain, 1982)
  25. Infested (France, 2023)
  26. Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
  27. A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
  28. Enys Men (UK, 2022)
  29. Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
  30. Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
  31. Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

And if you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!

Enys Men (UK, 2022)

As regular listeners to the podcast may know, I am a sucker for folk horror, especially that from the UK. The initial mentions I saw of Enys Men a few years ago described it as folk horror, although I’ve since encountered other opinions, categorising it as an experimental film and even questioning whether it is horror at all.

Personally, I have no problem describing Enys Men as folk horror. While it doesn’t necessarily tap into the themes of old, pagan beliefs so common to the genre, it is definitely rooted in landscape and history. More importantly, perhaps, it perfectly captures the aesthetic. This is a film set in 1973 — the year in which The Wicker Man was released — and it embodies the spirit of the time to an almost uncanny degree. And that’s good enough for me.

Enys Men is currently streaming on Channel 4 in the UK.

Enys Men 1

Synopsis

A researcher is stationed alone on an island off the coast of Cornwall, making observations about a small patch of endangered flowers. Her days follow the same routine, taking temperature readings, dropping stones down a disused mine shaft, and reading in bed. Every entry she writes in her research notes is almost identical. Only the dates of these entries and her dwindling supplies of tea and petrol suggest time is really passing.

The landscape is barren, but she seems connected to it, from the bay where a plaque commemorates the loss of a lifeboat crew to the standing stone that looms ominously in front of her cottage. A sense that something terrible is approaching grows as the anniversary of the disaster approaches.

The researcher’s reality begins breaking down when she challenges the visions she’s having of the people who used to live on this island. Time starts to behave oddly. Lichen sprouts from the flowers and then from her own body. Her visions increase as the lichen spreads, fracturing her connection to the present.

Enys Men 2

General Thoughts

British folk horror is fixated on the 1970s. This is the era when the films and TV programmes that defined the genre were made, and somehow we never left it. Even so, it’s rare to see a film that so perfectly captures the aesthetic of the time as Enys Men does. I would not have been surprised to learn that it really was made in 1973.

The austere landscape of Cornwall dominates this film. Every external shot contains something essential to the area, from the moors and craggy seashore to the standing stones and abandoned mines. The way the film draws us into the countryside fits its ecological themes perfectly.

Throughout the film, our protagonist reads A Blueprint For Survival by Edward Goldsmith. This is a short book but she never seems to make any progress, adding to the sense that time is not really passing. The book itself is an ecological text that advocates for smaller, simpler communities to avoid environmental collapse. This echoes both the isolation the protagonist is experiencing and the visions of the former community she experiences.

It is refreshing to see a horror film where the protagonist is a middle-aged woman. Horror is so often a young person’s genre, and while things have changed, casting still tends to reflect that. Mary Woodvine’s performance is marvellous, and there is an aching honesty about the way she embodies her character.

Verdict

Enys Men is a strange, unsettling film. Everything about it feels like a lost artefact from 1973, from it being shot on 16mm film stock to the sparse electronic soundtrack. The naturalistic lighting, deliberate editing, and lingering shots of the landscape could very well have come from a documentary you might have caught at the time, late at night on BBC 2.

There is very little dialogue, and it is over an hour into the film before we really see our protagonist interact with another person. This adds to the atmosphere, but makes following the story challenging. What narrative we get is minimal and fractured, using disconnected images to hint at larger truths. Although very little actually happens, the mood is saturated with dread.

All of this adds up to a film that will alienate most viewers but absolutely delight a small contingent. It is unashamedly experimental, aiming to create an emotional state rather than tell us a story. In that, it is completely successful.

I can’t imagine Enys Men being the highlight of anyone’s Halloween watch party, but it may be a film to save for some wet and windy evening when the ghosts of the land are calling.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

  1. Heretic (USA, 2024)
  2. The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
  3. The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
  4. The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
  5. WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
  6. Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
  7. The Monkey (USA, 2025)
  8. Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
  9. Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
  10. Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
  11. Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
  12. Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
  13. Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
  14. Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
  15. The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
  16. A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
  17. Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
  18. Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
  19. Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
  20. Hatching (Finland, 2022)
  21. Abigail (USA, 2024)
  22. Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
  23. The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
  24. Pieces (Spain, 1982)
  25. Infested (France, 2023)
  26. Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
  27. A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
  28. Enys Men (UK, 2022)
  29. Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
  30. Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
  31. Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.

And if you dig through the archives, you will also find episodes about a wide variety of horror stories and games. Happy nightmares!